In a four branch MIMO system, a transmitter (hereafter “base station”) I (e.g., radio base station, eNB, eNodeB, NodeB, etc) may use four antennas to transmit data to a receiver (hereafter “user equipment (UE)”) (e.g., wireless communication terminal such as a smartphone or other wireless communication device) and the UE may have four antennas for receiving the transmitted data. For each antenna, the transmitter may use the antenna to wirelessly transmit a “common” pilot signal. A “common” pilot signal refers to a known signal that is made available to all UEs and that may be transmitted without user specific beamforming. A pilot signal may have one or both of the following functions: (1) enabling a UE that has knowledge of the power of the pilot signal to use the pilot signal to estimate a transmission channel—for example, determine the quality of the channel that the pilot signal traversed (e.g., the UE may use the pilot signal to determine a signal to noise ratio (SNR) or a signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR)) and (2) assisting the UE in demodulating downlink data transmitted to the UE by the transmitter.
For each pilot signal transmitted by the transmitter, what is desired is a way to inform the UE of a power value for the pilot signal. The power value may represent the actual power at which the transmitter transmitted the pilot signal.